According to @adam3us, Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN is not an endorsement of storing data on the blockchain and this point is reflected in Bitcoin Core release notes, addressing claims about protocol “intent.” source: Adam Back on X (Oct 19, 2025). OP_RETURN is a provably unspendable output meant for small metadata and is relayed under node standardness policy rather than designed for bulk data storage, which limits its role in non-transactional data use cases. source: Bitcoin Core policy documentation; Bitcoin Wiki OP_RETURN. Most Ordinals inscriptions embed data in Taproot witness, not OP_RETURN, so this clarification targets intent arguments but not the main mechanism behind inscription-driven blockspace demand. source: Ordinals protocol documentation; Bitcoin Optech Newsletter. For trading, monitor BTC average fees, mempool congestion, and miner fee share because relay policy and social norms around non-payment data influence blockspace competition and transaction costs. source: Bitcoin Core policy documentation on standard transactions; mempool.space fee market dashboard.

According to @Excellion, OP_RETURN2 is a potential Bitcoin soft-fork concept proposing a cheaper, fully discardable OP_RETURN2 annex not included in transaction hashes, limiting OP_RETURN via consensus rules, and removing the SegWit discount. Source: https://x.com/Excellion/status/1974608749429137533 Removing the SegWit discount would increase the effective weight of witness data toward 4 weight units per byte (like base data) from the discounted 1 weight unit, directly raising fees for witness-heavy transactions per the BIP-141 weight formula. Source: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0141.mediawiki Ordinals inscriptions embed content in Taproot witness data, so higher witness costs would directly raise on-chain inscription costs and could reduce activity in inscription-heavy markets such as BRC-20. Source: https://docs.ordinals.com/inscriptions.html Soft-fork proposals are typically discussed on the bitcoin-dev mailing list and formalized as BIPs, creating public milestones traders can monitor for potential timing and market impact on BTC fees and throughput. Source: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

According to @deanmlittle, he posted on X that Udi is ruining Bitcoin by selling JPEGs on-chain, underscoring the ongoing rift over Ordinals and inscriptions on BTC that traders track for sentiment shifts. Source: @deanmlittle on X, Sep 28, 2025. Ordinals enable image-like data to be inscribed directly on Bitcoin, a design that has coincided with periods of elevated transaction counts and fee pressure during prior inscription waves, which are relevant to liquidity and execution costs. Source: Ordinals protocol documentation; mempool.space network fee and mempool charts. Higher on-chain fees directly increase miner transaction-fee revenue share, a dynamic that can affect miner cash flows and hashprice sensitivity that BTC and miner-equity traders monitor. Source: Bitcoin.org Developer Guide on transaction fees; Luxor Hashrate Index research. For trade planning, monitor three signals: mempool backlog and median fee rate for execution risk, inscription mint activity for NFT-on-Bitcoin momentum, and miner fee share to gauge miner revenue leverage to fees. Source: mempool.space for mempool and fee metrics; Dune Analytics Ordinals dashboards for inscription counts; Luxor Hashrate Index for miner revenue analytics.

According to @adam3us, nudging miners with education, outreach to switch to pools that do not include image-style 'JPEG' transactions, and fee-backed economic lobbying could reduce their inclusion in BTC blocks, indicating a push for stricter pool-level transaction policies, source: Adam Back (X, Sep 5, 2025). A coordinated mining-pool policy directly changes block templates and which transactions compete for scarce block space, thereby influencing the Bitcoin fee market, source: Bitcoin.org Developer Guide on Mining and Transaction Fees. Traders should monitor pool policy announcements, the share of blocks mined by pools that exclude such transactions, and median sat/vB fee levels as near-term catalysts for BTC on-chain costs and throughput, source: Bitcoin.org Mining overview; mining pool operator communications. A visible decline in these image-style transactions would be reflected in mempool composition and block contents, signaling potential easing of fee spikes that impact deposit and withdrawal costs for exchanges and users, source: Bitcoin.org Mempool and Fees documentation.